“I really, really miss my coupons,” Robyn Anderson-Beard wrote on
the retailer’s Facebook page. Bobbi Cada wrote: This “is not a
change at all, there has never been a day in all of my shopping
at JCP where ANYTHING has been full price.”

And visiting a J. C. Penney in Florida this month, Michelle
Clark, a Morgan Stanley analyst, took note of “sales
associates that had difficulty explaining the new pricing
strategy,” along with a lack of shoppers.

Rafi Mohammed, a pricing consultant, said Penney’s merchandise
was not unusual enough to draw customers into stores without
significant markdowns. “A lot of people feel good about saving
money and having a notion of, ‘I saved X percent,’ ” he
said. “Consumers do code a $19.99 very differently than a $20.”

Johnson may be learning that Penney customers are a different
breed than Apple customers. The question is whether he can
train them to be rational.